The more I read and study about Pakistan the more I find myself alienated from its people, culture and political dealings. I opened up the Pakistani newspaper today (not literally, who reads an article on a paper anymore?) and I just couldn't imagine a riot like the one that happened in Pakistan today ever happening in the US.
The people in Multan, Pakistan (the home town of the new prime minister) burned down the state electric department and a bank because the power company announced another power cut. The mob also set fire to furniture, buses and motorcycles, but what I thought was the most outrageous part of the riot was that they dragged 10 electric company employees out into the street and savagely beat them with wooden planks. As if the low level employees are to blame for the power crisis. 40 people were injured in all and thousands of dollars of damages were accrued, but more importantly is that this is a sign of democracy's apocalypse and the four horsemen are high food prices, power shortages, credit shortages and no quick solutions to any of the other three.
Not to run this point into the ground, but I've said all along that a war with Mursharraf isn't what the majority of Pakistanis care about. They don't care that parliament was run by religious radicals, they don't care that the judiciary was sacked and they don't care what the constitution says. Let's be honest, the uneducated masses of Pakistan care about where their next pay check is coming from and how much of it is going towards food. The regional police chief, Mirza Muhammad Ali said that the power outages were putting 500,000 loom workers and their families at risk of starvation since they worked 20 hours a day and with the power outages they would be out of work for a period of time.
If problems like these power outages keep going unaddressed, then the new civilian government is going to find itself with few supporters. When the PPP came into office they promised that they would fix the power outages. Thus far, however, the only real action they have taken is replacing the head of the state electric department, which in my opinion, is more politics than a resolve to fix a problem. The new power plants they are considering building won't be done for 6-10 years and the current hydroelectric plants are losing power every day with the falling water levels. Their answer is that Mursharraf caused all these problems - a claim I'm willing to bet is true. However, people tend to have short term memories and when their families are starving the question isn't, "who caused this?" - it's, "what are you gonna do about it?" I'm sure putting Mursharraf's head on a pike will feed the people though, right?
2 comments:
This is the first time I've gotten a chance to read your blog since I unknowingly had not linked you on my blog :/ I find your viewpoints on Pakistan interesting and I completely agree with the opening paragraph of this post. I find it hard to imagine the riots and strife and war that occur in other countries every happening in the US. And I attribute this break in reality to the reason why so many people in our country are completely ignorant of world affairs. While we are active (maybe too active) in countries like this, in a sense we isolate ourselves from the rest of the world as well. I think this is why 9/11 caused such a stir. Granted it was terrorism on an astronomical scale, but in addition it actually occurred in our country, and not in some foreign, 3rd world country that people ignorantly assume has nothing to do with us or our daily lives.
Your post actually made me happier to live in America. I used to live in Sacramento and during the power crisis a few summers ago we'd have rolling black outs. Well we didn't riot in the streets and attack unsuspecting workers for our frustrations. I think time and time again America is portrayed as an indecent country. If we're so indecent, why does no one die after an election, or riot the status quo?
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